Voter preferences divide Premier Letta, centre-left leader

(By Christopher Livesay)
(ANSA) - Rome, January 24 - Premier Enrico Letta has made
some objections to a new election law proposed by the leader of
his center-left Democratic Party Matteo Renzi, raising another
hurdle for the ambitious mayor of Florence.
Renzi, the 39-year-old who won a primary to be leader of
Italy's biggest party in a landslide last month, struck a deal
for a new election law with centre-right leader and three-time
premier Silvio Berlusconi last weekend.
The deal was approved by the PD at a party meeting on
Monday despite objections from an internal minority that it said
was tainted and represented a sort of political rehabilitation
for Forza Italia leader Berlusconi, who was ejected from
parliament last year after a binding tax-fraud conviction.
Many in the party are still calling for a plan to be
changed to allow voters to express a preference as to which
candidate on any given party list represents them in parliament.

Italy needs a new election law after the Constitutional
Court ruled the old one invalid last month and part of the
reason it did so was that its system of long 'blocked lists' of
candidates gave voters little power in selecting
representatives.
Renzi's plan seeks to get around the detachment this
creates between elector and elected with smaller constituencies
and lists of a maximum of six candidates so voters can have a
better idea of who the potential MPs are in their area.
But Letta has suggested he agrees with the PD minority that
this is not good enough.
"I believe that the public should get more say in the
choice of the candidates," he said.
Renzi, who said he tried to get Berlusconi to accept voter
preferences but was told this was a deal-breaker, initially said
his election-law programme was unamendable.
He has since softened that stance, saying changes could be
made if everyone is in agreement.

But he also warned that if the election reform does not
come to fruition, it will spell the end for Letta's fragile
left-right coalition government and fresh elections.
Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Angelino Alfano's New
Centre Right (NCD) party, one of the junior partners in Letta's
coalition, is backing the reform plan but it too is calling for
voter preferences.
However, a bigwig from Forza Italia, which abandoned the
government and joined the opposition shortly before Berlusconi
was ejected from parliament, reportedly dismissed a call for it
to rethink its veto on voter preferences at a meeting with a PD
MP close to Renzi on Friday.

Renzi's drive to introduce a new election law has caused
problems for the government and fuelled speculation he wants to
scupper Letta's executive and provoke a fresh vote, in the hope
of winning and taking his party colleague's place at the helm of
government.
The PD chief has denied this, saying he wants to support
the government throughout 2014 so it can pass key reforms,
including moves to make Italy easier to govern by stripping the
Upper House of its lawmaking powers.

Some pundits have said his uncompromising approach is
justified given Italy's recent history.

The political parties failed for years to find an agreement
on a new system, even though the old one, which was nicknamed
the 'pigsty' and was blamed for contributing to the inconclusive
outcome to last year's general election, was widely recognised
to be dysfunctional.

Late last year the Constitutional Court went a step
further, ruling it was invalid.
Italy's political class has also little to show in terms of
structural reforms widely seen as needed to revive the Italian
economy after a decade in which recession has alternated with
sluggish growth.

Renzi's plan also risks coming under attack in parliament
from small parties whose existence is threatened by the
thresholds it seeks to introduce for a group to have seats - 8%
for parties not in a coalition and 5% for those that are.

But in the meantime Renzi can count on support from the
battered but still formidable Berlusconi, who on Friday said he
"had finally found someone reasonable in the PD".
"We've launched the first important reform of our
constitutional framework," said the three-time premier, "because
as things stand, Italy is not governable".